Day 59: Timber Creek campground to Estes Park

June 26, 2010

It was 44F when I got up at 7 AM. On the road at 8:25, US 34 continues upstream for 5 miles in buggy dense shade. Then the road starts climbing in switchbacks up a huge mountain. The road is blasted into incredibly steep forested slopes. Mosquitoes swarmed all around me and I was only going 3.5 mph. Mosquitoes were far more of a problem than the well-packed construction gravel. The road was under construction through all of the switchbacks.

Construction gravel on Trail Ridge road.

Looking back at the Kawuneeche valley. The Timber Creek campground is the brown area near the middle.

Never Summer mountains west of the Colorado river headwaters.

Stopping to take a picture always resulted in a couple more bites. The mosquitoes finally ended just before Milner pass, about where pavement resumed. I think I'm high enough now that the nights are too cold for mosquitoes. Milner Pass is my last crossing of the Continental Divide. The east side is the headwaters for the Cache la Poudre river which I will see again while driving home in a rental car.

This was the lowest of my 3 divide crossings.

It was a relief to be past the mosquitoes. But the sky was getting increasingly overcast. That's common in such high mountains. The road went down the Cache la Poudre river for a short distance, then started climbing again. At 11,000 feet I was above treeline for the first time on this tour. Suddenly I have a 360-degree view because the tundra is only a few inches high. I biked into tundra once before, on Beartooth pass (Montana, 2004), but the mountain views are more impressive here.

Approaching treeline on Trail Ridge road. In the upper right is the Alpine Visitor Center which is at 11,796 feet elevation.

View from Medicine Bow curve just below the Alpine Visitor center. Below is the Cache la Poudre river.

I stopped for lunch at the sprawling and very crowded Alpine Visitor center. It started raining heavily before I finished lunch. I waited in the visitor center for an hour, until the rain lightened. The temperature had dropped to 45F. Fortunately the rain stopped soon after I got back on the bike.

Climbing to the unmarked 12,183-foot summit on Trail Ridge road.

Traffic was heavy. The east side of Trail Ridge road has more traffic because most visitors come from the east. And I suspect a lot of people wanted to get off the mountain away from the storm. The well-packed construction gravel resumed before I got to the 12,183-foot (3690 m) summit. It's the highest highway pass in the U.S. but there is no sign because the road is on a narrow ledge on a steep slope, with no space for cars to stop.

View looking west from just west of the unmarked 12,183 foot summit.

The views from Trail Ridge road east of the visitor center are stunning. On top of the world with mountains all around. The dominant mountain ahead of me to the east is Long's Peak, but it was rapidly being shrouded by clouds.

Panoramic view from Trail Ridge road. Distant Long's Peak on the far left. Gore range on the left. Never Summer range on the right.

In the hazy distance on the left is 14,259-foot Long's Peak, the highest mountain in Rocky Mountain National Park.

Just past the summit I stopped to hike the Tundra communities trail. The trail goes uphill to 12,370 feet (3750 m) elevation, the highest I've ever been on a bike tour. It was fascinating to have an up-close look at the tundra, but I walked the trail quickly because a storm was approaching. The rain started 5 minutes before I got back to the bike. I bundled up for a long descent in the rain, on gravel.

Because of the rain and gravel I could only go about 20 mph on the top half of the descent. Then the road changed to milled asphalt and I could go about 25 mph. Most of the time I had a line of impatient motorists behind me despite the 25 mph construction speed limit. Altogether I think Trail Ridge road had 12 miles of gravel and 5 miles of milled asphalt. Thank you, American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Pavement resumed at the Many Parks curve overlook.

View east from the Many Parks Curve overlook. Trail Ridge road and the Fall River are clearly visible.

Massive snowmelt from above on this steep north-facing slope.

The long descent in the rain got me very chilled, so I took a long stop in the shelter of a big roof in front of the bathrooms at Many Parks curve, with several other cold wet cyclists. After 30 minutes the rain became very light and I could see that there was no rain farther down the road. I was dry and warm by the time I got to Estes Park.

The last several miles of Trail Ridge road is along the Fall River, gently downhill to Estes Park.

Estes Park (population 5413, elevation 7589 ft.) was a shock. I arrived at 5:15 PM on a Saturday during peak season. The downtown area was gridlocked with cars and pedestrians. I went to the visitor center to find out about camping. Sadly, nothing like the Town Campground in Telluride. The nearest camping is at an RV park 3 miles from downtown. I went to the Elk Meadow RV park and paid $54 for two nights in their overflow camping area. No table, but plenty of junky old RVs in storage. It was a depressing place for my last campsite of this tour. Showers and laundromat were nice, though.

Estes Park is in a beautiful forested setting just outside Rocky Mountain National Park, with two rivers running through downtown. The downtown is charming. It's not a former mining town. It started as a tourist town. But Estes Park is now an industrial tourism town with millions of tourists passing through every year. Much busier than the other tourist towns I saw on this tour - Springdale, Moab, Telluride, Breckenridge. The weather was mostly sunny with a high of 75F. And there were almost no mosquitoes. That's nice.

Today I pedaled higher than I've ever been on a bike. Probably the highest I will pedal in my lifetime. I have been anticipating it for a long time but it was kind of an anti-climax because the weather, traffic, and road construction were such a distraction.

In the evening I had an expensive dinner at the Rock Inn restaurant just outside the campground. I spent a lot of time in the evening thinking about this tour. It's almost finished now, my longest tour since 1989. Tomorrow I will visit another part of Rocky Mountain National Park. After that will be an easy half-day downhill ride to Loveland, where I have a rental car reservation.

Distance: 45 mi. (72 km)

Climbing: 3900 ft. (1182 m)

Hiking: 1 mi. (1.6 km)

Today's ride: 45 miles (72 km)
Total: 2,753 miles (4,431 km)

Rate this entry's writing	Heart	1
Comment on this entry	Comment	0